More CIA Lies about Torture Briefings
Time has an important story matching a claim made in Steven Bradbury’s July 20, 2007 OLC memo about Congressional briefings on torture with what the Senators themselves (particularly John McCain) say about briefing they received. The claim–which appears in the middle of a discussion about what shocks the conscience (pages 43-44)–is this:
Nevertheless, you have informed us that prior to passage of the Military Commissions Act, several Members of Congress, including the full memberships of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and Senator McCain, were briefed by General Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, on the six techniques that we discuss herein and that, General Hayden explained, would likely be necessary to the CIA detention and interrogation program should the legislation be enacted. In those classified and private conversations, none of the Members expressed the view that the CIA detention and interrogation program should be stopped, or that the techniques at issue were inappropriate. Many of those Members thereafter were critical in ensuring the passage of the legislation, making clear through their public statements and through their votes that they believed that a CIA program along the lines General Hayden described could and should continue.
The Time article focuses closely on McCain’s objection to this representation:
A spokeswoman for McCain said that contrary to those claims, the Arizona Republican repeatedly raised objections in private meetings, including one with Hayden, about the use of sleep deprivation as an interrogation technique. "Senator McCain clearly made the case that he was opposed to unduly coercive techniques, especially when used in combination or taken too far — including sleep deprivation," says Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for McCain.
Less prominent, but important given her current position as Chair of SSCI investigating–among other things–CIA’s lies about briefings, is this objection from DiFi:
In the weeks that followed, according to a person familiar with matter, California Democrat Diane Feinstein, a member of the committee, raised concerns with the CIA about use of enhanced interrogation techniques.
Now, some of the people briefed have already raised objections about the characterizations made of these briefings (for example, Feingold wrote a letter objecting to the program and later wrote objecting to Hayden’s representations of his briefings on the program). Perhaps that’s why Hayden is ready with his own objections about how these briefings were characterized.
A former senior intelligence official familiar with Hayden’s discussions with Congress also told TIME that Bradbury’s characterization of the discussions was incomplete — but in a different way. "Hayden didn’t go to the committees seeking approval for the techniques: he was simply seeking guidance," says the official. "There was no singular view from the committees: there were people who wanted us out of the counter-terrorism business, and there were people who said, ‘Why aren’t we still doing waterboarding?’"
The official says Hayden had one short meeting with McCain, in the Senate cloakroom, but doesn’t recall the details of that discussion. But, the official adds: "Hayden has never claimed that the committees told him, "You’re good to go, no problem."
Now, the Time article claims that Bradbury "cite[d] a CIA summary" in his description of the briefings. That’s not entirely clear–as noted above, he simply says, "you have informed us." So it’s not clear whether John Rizzo–who appears to have made a great many questionable representations in his long history of soliciting OLC memos–just made shit up to imply Congressional sanction for sleep deprivation. Or whether, as has proven the case at least for at least ten other briefings, the CIA’s own records misrepresent what happened in the briefings.
But one thing is clear–someone at the CIA is still lying about its torture briefings to Congress.
Public opinion on holding Cheney accountable and c-spans treatment of the topic this a.m:
c-span this a.m on Cheney. Felt like a failed trial baloon by republicans to check out whether his weekend foray on Fox had struck a chord.
Cherry picked paragraphs from NYT and Wapo…defending and making the “Cheney case” (necessary evil and how dare you?).
5 callers. End of story. Quickest top story I have ever seen…NEXT!!
1st caller made the republican case with a too nice radio voice. (this is ridiculous and Dems are showing they support the enemy. Caller was way too articulate for your average Josephine who would really believe that Dems support terrorists when they don’t want torture).
2nd caller…all about the constitution. Dem
3rd caller…all about our reputation abroad and the need for holding those accountable. Independent.
4th caller…all about our reputation abroad. Independent.
Next story about Japanese trade. Sleeper…5th call…republican line under new story…defending poor Cheney.
I’d say he didn’t help himself much if c-span was any indication. They clearly got off the topic as quickly as they could.
Don’t allow the MSM to support Cheney’s rewriting of history without a fight…
Note the new and improved version of reality used by Cheney this weekend while describing the benefits achieved by his admitted torture. The latest claim is that he prevented another ”mass casualty attack” on US soil. Note that he no longer makes the claim that his administration prevented further “terror attacks” on US Soil…
For many years – we heard the Bush administration state (and the MSM repeat as fact), that the US had been kept safe from a repeat of the original single terror attack on domestic soil.
That of course was and remains a lie.
The anthrax attacks were by every single definition a domestic terror attack, more horrifying to many than 9/11 itself. Subsequent domestic terror attacks included the falsely contrived color-coded threats, known to be false – themselves defined as terror.
This new term: “mass casualty attack,” is his way of getting us to forget all of the other forms of domestic terrorist activity that his Administration intentionally inflicted on we the people.
And the controlled media will parrot the line verbatim, seeking to rewrite history while manipulating present reality.
“We don’t torture” became “OK, we did torture, but it was for a good cause.”
“We prevented further terror attacks on US Soil” became “we prevented another mass casualty attack.”
Words matter. So does discernible reality.
I wonder why the talking heads don’t have wilkerson on discussing these torture programs and the effectiveness
wilerson sais traiEght out there were less then one percent of the cia invovled, he said straight out these programs were not effective, he said straight out the cia’s “moral” is being trashed BECAUSE these criminals are not brought to the bar of justice
wilerson is the MOST effective spokesperson to demonstrate the depravity and lying if the vice president
is there any way we can lobby to get him for counterpoint on most of these shows?
And here is that piece again where Wilkerson makes that “less than 1%” point. It starts around 2:14 but the whole interview is worth the listen.
Where were DiFi and McBush while this was going on? Where were the “objections” then?
Boxturtle (*crickets*)
They actually manage to make Jello Jay and his pitiful handwritten letter to his desk drawer about the warrantless wiretapping look good.
Well, at least Jello Jay “said” SOMETHING. We don’t know what he said and we don’t know for sure what he said it about.
And we note he’s still not doing anything about “it” and he’s not even writing about “it” anymore.
Still, it’s the closest thing to standing up for the rule of law that anyone on that committee did or has done. I suppose we should be grateful.
Boxturtle (Why am I not grateful?)
Box Turtle
1) We do know what Jello Jay said to significant extent (and we also know what Jane Harman said, exactly).
2) We do know that DiFi and McCain were not briefed on this, officially, until 2006.
So there’s a very good explanation why Jello Jay was the one who wrote something on this. For quite some time, he was one of just two Dems briefed on this.
The point I was making was that at least Jello Jay made a contemporaneous record of his objections (relative to wiretapping), though it was surely a feeble and cowed one.
DiFi and McSame didn’t even have the ‘nads to go that far (in any context).
As a result, Jello Jay can escape the inevitable inference which will attach to DiFi and McSame, i.e., that they decided now to be against it now, once it became clear that being against torture would be the way to go. Or, as us lawyers call it the inference of “recent fabrication” can attach to DiFi and McSame, but maybe not so much to Jello Jay (at least in the context of wiretapping; as to torture, we’ve seen nothing from him).
Still, they’re each a pitiful excuse for a Senator.
scribe
What is the most likely implication of this passage:
It’s that DiFi raised written concerns about them. Just because we haven’t seen them–in the same way we haven’t seen Feingold’s, though we know they were written–doesn’t mean they aren’t in writing.
I don’t love DiFi any more than anyone else. But it is irrational to attack her because she didn’t object to something that she wasn’t briefed on (in contrast to Jello Jay objecting to something he was briefed on). ANd it is premature to assume that she did not document her objections to this briefing.
However, it is not premature to state that whatever objecting she did, it didn’t make a bit of difference.
Boxturtle (BushCo still wiretapped, still tortured, still stonewalled)
As to the “raised concerns” language, that could mean anything from “Don’t get caught” to “WTF are you doing, you barbarians” to “Can I get you a line item in next year’s budget for new uniforms. I was thinking feldgrau, black and silver trim.” We can draw no inferences from that language alone.
That said, I still have no problem with laying into DiFi right now. Comparing her conduct to Jello Jay and his feeble missive on wiretapping leads me to the conclusion that she didn’t protest too much. Remember, Jello Jay protested that he didn’t know enough of the details to know exactly why he was opposed to it but that he was nonetheless opposed to it, even though he was (and recognized he was) helpless to stop it. And remember further that Jello Jay undertook on his own to get his letter, feeble and ineffectual as it was, declassified so as to put it into the public discussion.
Human nature being what it is, and politician nature being that way even moreso, one has to conclude that if DiFi had protested (even like Jello Jay – “I don’t know why I’m opposed to it, but I am, even if I can’t stop it”) in any contemporaneous manner, she would have sought by now to have it declassified so as to show her toga as being free from any bloodstains.
If she did try and can’t get it declassified – with Dems (loosely defined) up and down the entire Executive-CIA chain of command – either the chain (or someone in it) is very, very unhappy with her and is therefore hanging her out to dry, or her protest (and consequently the briefing(s), which would have been the source of information upon which she would have based her protest) was very, very detailed and the Executive has decided that despite the abhorrent and criminal nature of the conduct it still cannot be released to the public.
Alternatively, if she has not sought to have whatever protest she might have made released, then the only logical conclusions are that (a) she didn’t protest too strongly, or (b) she didn’t protest in writing and therefore has nothing to seek to have released.
None of those is favorable to her.
Moreover, we have to distinguish between the contexts surrounding Jello Jay’s wiretapping protest and DiFi’s putative torture protest. In Jello Jay’s case, we knew nothing until the winter of 2005 about the wiretap program. We knew, shortly into that story’s development, that Jello Jay had protested, even though we didn’t see his actual letter for some time thereafter.
In the case of the torture, it was obvious both from the public mood and from Deadeye’s “dark side” comment (and the later-exposed “heads on pikes” comment from Cofer Black as well as the “bin Laden’s head on a platter” story) as well as publicly-reported events which occurred prior to Abu Ghraib (like the way the so-called American Taliban was treated) that Americans would and did torture people. The way Gitmo detainees were treated when first shipped there in early 2002 confirmed that to anyone with an appreciation for the UCMJ, Geneva and even the most-cursory exposure to the history of the 20th Century detention regimes in totalitarian states. And Abu Ghraib and the first stories coming out of Gitmo, Bagram and the Charleston Brig should have removed the scales from even the most determined-to-be-blind eyes. All those happened before – literally years before in some instances – the events being described in the article which, after all, surrounded negotiations over legislation to address (not remedy or prevent) the abuses which had taken place and been exposed and litigated all the way to the Supreme Court a couple times by then. So, she cannot bleat that she “had no idea” – torture is not so esoteric a concept as wiretapping and it was no secret by that time.
Nope. The inescapable conclusion – pending further revelations – is that DiFi was happy to go along to get along (and make sure she kept getting bought off with contracts for her hubby and airplane rides with Bushie) and now she is shocked, shocked, shocked to find out torture was going on there. In other words, I’m treating her as guilty until she proves her innocence. Because logic dictates it, not emotion.
I disagree with much of what you say abotu DiFi.
But for the moment I’ll just point out taht your claims about what woudl happen if DiFi tried to get such a letter declassified are pretty much demonstrably false, given the known example of Feingold trying to get HIS letter, written in 2006 declassified. He has been trying ot do so for 2 years and has not yet succeeded.
If DiFi’s written something and is trying to get it declassified and can’t, then either it’s full of really bad information that the Admin does not want to see the light of day, or she’s not trying hard.
As to Feingold’s efforts being unavailing on a 2006 letter he’s been trying to get out for two years, I think it’s the “really bad information the Admin does not want out” – not a lack of trying on his part.
Frankly, I don’t see why they – as they would be the originating authority (or whatever is the formal name for the person who created the classified information in the first place) – don’t just go all Speech and Debate on their own letters. “We’ve given you two years and we’re done being stroked and bound to lose an Article I – Article II showdown so long as we play by the rules Article II sets. I’m in the Well of the Senate and speaking. This is what I wrote.”
Stepping back from that brink, I can’t see what there is to disagree with in my analysis. DiFi’s husband made millions off Bush-era contracts and the natural and logical conclusion is that those were tied to her being a good go-along player. I don’t recall her getting up and speaking in even the most placid tones to protest Abu Ghraib or any of the atrocities which preceded that. If she did speak, it made no impression.
Okay, it made no impression. Among other things DiFi has been one of the people at the forefront of efforts to (Jeff Kaye’s complaints aside) make AFM the standard for interrogation.
DiFi is not a friend. But on torture DiFi has been doing things–public things that apparently have made no impression. But because your preconceptions about DiFi made it hard for your to see her efforts, it doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.
That doesn’t make her Russ Feingold (though as I say often, if you can get a DiFi solidly on your side it may mean more than FFeingold, since she’s more apt to get stuff done). But at the same time it doesn’t mean attacks ignoring her record are fair.
Fair enough. The core problems are threefold:
1. Making the Army Field Manual the standard for interrogation is an ass-backward way of going about it, both practically and legally. What should be done is to make Geneva (liberally interpreted in favor of the captive, as it is written to be) the standard for interrogation and all other detainee operations of whatever flavor, and then write the Army Field Manual to meet that standard. As it is, a number of the procedures in the Army Field Manual – not the least its classified annex – are at best dubious as to whether they comply with Geneva and, more likely, violate it. Second, going about it in the way I posit makes deviation from that standard a signal act. Right now, field manuals get rewritten every day and it’s a full-time job just to keep up with it and no one notices anyway.
2. If Feinstein has been so ineffectual that her efforts made no impression on someone who has been paying attention, she isn’t very effectual.
3. I agree with you about the Feingold/Feinstein dichotomy. But, I suspect that if it were not for Feingold, Feinstein would not be doing anything at all. And she remains compromised by her husband’s contracting and profitting from the contracting.
You are referring to the infamous Appendix M, aren’t you? Or are there other Appendices equally vile?
Bob from HI
Appendix M it is.
Btw, Appendix M is not classified.
While I’m not happy that Dianne Feinstein doesn’t listen to me on the AFM, I’m certainly not surprised. (Imagine ironic emoticon here.) I presume that she listens to her advisers on military matters, and they assure her that people like me are full of hot air. Furthermore, if she looked at the AFM herself, she’d see lots of assurances that it was Geneva-compliant. The advisers would soothe her, as they’ve tried to convince me that “proper safeguards” are in place around the more dicey parts.
This is not to alibi Feinstein, but I’ve long maintained (though toned it down) that the real problem in getting the AFM story out started with a lack of any interest in reporting anything but the government line in the mainstream press, and even blogosphere (present company excepted). Even Amnesty did not come out on the AFM issue until earlier this year. Only PHR, as an organization, was out front on this from day one. PHR also, btw, just released a “white paper” today — Aiding Torture: Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 Inspector General’s Report.
Maybe you’ve covered this in what you have already written, but it also occurs to me that she made a feeble gesture to declassify, so that she could claim to having done so, but then folded at the first sign of bureaucratic refusal, happy to have her request denied. That way, she can play both sides of the fence.
But then EW’s reply @ 28 pretty much disposes of this possibility.
Bob from HI
Do you have any evidence of that fact?
I thought not.
I’m not saying I do have evidence that she did. But it seems to me there are a bunchof claims about DiFI here, some of which are contradicted by known facts that none of you seem to care about, and others of which no one has the facts about.
DiFi is an awful, obstructive Senator. But on this issue, this thread has badly misrepresented her known actions.
I think you wrote your reply before I went back and edited my post to acknowledge your point @ 28.
And you are correct. I have no specific evidence to support my suggestion. I was just adding to the list of alternative hypotheses.
Thanks for the current blizzard of your posts, with which I am trying to catch up!
Bob from HI
Thanks, Marcy — As far as the briefing timeline, this may be so. But watching Feinstein blatantly betray her oath to the Constitution yesterday on national tv is inexcusable.
I lost my trust in goverment a long time ago. And given the CYA that’s going on with both parties, I’ll believe whats in Jay’s letter when I see it. And I also feel very strongly, given what was going on, that a letter was simply insufficient. BushCo collected sternly worded letters, for goodness sakes!
Your point #2 is valid, but I’d put a lot of emphasis on the word “officially”. Especially in the case of McCain.
Feingold still seems to have his honor, I believe what he says. He’s rapidly becoming my favorite person in all of congress.
Boxturtle (Everybody but Feingold seems to be lying about who knew what when)
Ouch
I was watching the video embedded in this post and it inspired me. As did the video loop clip embedded in the sixth comment of this post. (Watch closely and you will note, as had been rumored, that his eyes really do glow from within with a preternatural golden light.)
And true to form, DiFink believes this is a poor time for an investigation. She thinks it’s more important to hold secret hearings on techniques, and we’ll never see results from said hearings, then a sham of an investigation Obama/Holder want.
A Republican by any other name.
Um, not briefed? They wouldn’t haev found out for sure this was going on until ABu Ghraib at the earliest.
Interesting, from the Time article, their discussion of Bradbury searching for instances of current community standards to help evaluate what does, and does not, shock the conscience.
Unsurprising, but nonetheless interesting.
Sounds suspiciously like Yoo-quality cherry-picking sophistry masquerading as lawyering.
Again.
Now I know why I should never even bother applying for a job at DoJ: I limit my cherry-picking to orchards and play my lawyering straight. Id’ never fit in, let along get past the entrance interview.
You’d almost think we hadn’t had the national and international reaction to the naked guys hung in stress positions at Abu Ghraib as a barometer, wouldn’t you?
I guess the diaper made all the difference.
The only questions left are whether Bradbury took his coffee table with him when he left OLC.
If he had to leave it behind, maybe we could chip in and send him one of his own for his new digs. With a diaper.
O/T. Quagmire ahead?
U.S. commander: Afghan strategy needs change
Peter Graff Reuters US Online Report Politics News
Aug 31, 2009 07:53 EST
KABUL (Reuters) – “The 8-year-old war in Afghanistan can still be won, but only with a revised strategy, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces said on Monday, announcing the conclusion of a long-awaited review that could see him seek more troops.
“Officials gave no indication in public as to whether U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, who commands a force of more than 100,000 troops, would ask for still more reinforcements to carry out his new strategy.”
More.
Did I miss this or were these briefings one on one or with the group as a whole. Since this tiny group represents a fraction of our 535 congress people there could be no reason for further divisions than the group of 16 or is it 8?
If they were divided and conquered down to one on one to he said she said, there can be no accountability.
Dick Cheney is a very unhappy person.
He has failed in all his endeavors and is only interested in his
own selfish deeds.
He could give two hoots for this country, only interested in power for power sake.
After watching, crying, and honoring Teddy all weekend, I only
feel pity for the Dickster…
You’re being quite generous, much too kind.
Dick is only worried about his own ass. He doesn’t want the kind of health care one gets in the federal prison system.
And as for his toxic progeny: his daughter doesn’t want her chances at a political career being tanked by her father’s legacy, particularly if he should get thrown in the federal pen, go to the Hague, or simply die with the taint of ineffective torture on his CV.
The two of them are a deadly duo of wallpaper hangers and painters, trying to cover up some of the ugliest chapters ever written in American history, ones written in Deadeye’s scrawly hand.
For years our nation has been like a rape victim, or a Kitty Genovese screaming that night in 1964. Some of our elected and appointed officials wrote what they heard in their journals, some pretended not to hear and, sadly, some thought “good riddance… had it coming… not my problem… can’t do anything anyway”.
Between healthcare selfishness and cataloging torture techniques we might yet reinstitute slavery, though perhaps not a race-based version.
BTW – where’s Bradbury working these days?
PS – I guess one of the really annoying things about his ploy that none of the members of the intel committee objected and indeed, ” Many of those Members thereafter were critical in ensuring the passage of the [MCA]” is that the votes of the members of the intel committee on the MCA are pretty much public record and I fail to see where Russ Feingold helped ensure the passage of that bill. Public record – not hey, youse guys told me in a secret meeting he was all goodsy to go-zee so I’ll put that in my secret memo, kthnxbai.
Excellent post, EW! I’ve been saying a long time you cannot trust what the CIA says, or how it represents “facts.”
Hayden, in particular, is a bad egg, steeped for years in the cauldron of disinformation. Congress is an obstacle to him to be suffered.
Hayden: “I’m sorry, Senator, I do not recall that. I have no recollection.”
On the other hand, from the Time article, a little spin from the McCain camp?
“Repeatedly”? Gee, I somehow missed that. Perhaps I was too busy being stunned by McCain’s failure to support the 2008 bill to ban “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the CIA.
If Bush’s dictate was: “I’m the President, acting as the Unitary Executive – do what I say, first, and then paper-it-up with legality, second” –
Then, everything that we’re seeing with the OLC Torture Memos and the Congressional Briefings is all Criminal Kabuki – orchestrated with intent to deceive by the Enablers/Loyalists of Bush and Cheney.
With the OLC Memos – it’s All an attempt at Ex-Post Facto Law – it’s all designed and constructed to excuse the Prior illegal acts of the Lawyers’ Bosses, and their Bosses’ Loyal Minions.
The Goopers call this a ‘Policy Difference’ even though it’s been out-lawed ever since the Magna Carta 800 years ago.
Imvho, the rolling evolution of the Torture Memos from Bush/Cheney to Bybee/Yoo/Haynes/Addington to Gonzo and Bradbury are the records of a running attempt to cover Bush with ‘legality’ for his ‘Decider-ing’ to start Torturing.
If the OPR Report doesn’t point out the Ex-Post Facto nature of the Construction of the Memos by the involved Lawyers, imvho, then it can hardly have truly evaluated their Professional Responsibility!
With the Congressional Briefings, it’s the same thing – it appears that the Members are being Briefed – After the Fact of the Actual Torturing – on the ‘Speculative’ use of the Torture – by Briefers using the [after-the-fact] OLC Memos as ‘legal justification.’
It’s an After-the-Fact *Duping* of the Members by posing cleverly framed ‘legal hypotheticals’ in order to surreptitiously determine ‘ratification’ of the prior illegal acts – which are now being claimed by the Briefers as ‘legal’ by virtue of the [after-the-fact] OLC Memos.
Ex-Post Facto Law used to bootstrap Ex-Post Facto ‘Congressional’ Approval.
Ianal, but that certainly seems to me like it’s All Intent-to-Defraud Kabuki to cover Bush’s Prior Illegal Acts.
Obviously, Bush and Cheney started, and sponsored, a Policy of Torture. The OPR Report should make it clear that their Lawyers were ‘in on it’ up to their necks. And, the Briefings to Congress seem to clearly show that their Political Loyalists were ‘in on it,’ too.
When are We going to have Our Supreme Court re-test the notion that No Man is Above the Law? When will Our Congress re-claim Our Right to Honest Services from Our Executive?
When will the Ex-Post Facto Spin – used to hide Torture – get un-twisted from the Ex-Post Facto OLC Memos and the Ex-Post Facto Congressional Briefings?
When will We – not just those of us following EW’s extraordinarily important work, but everyone – get to plainly ’see’ that Bush and Cheney ordered-up Torture as Policy, built a network of Secret Prisons, declared other human beings ‘not worthy’ of the Geneva Conventions or the Convention Against Torture, Systematically Tortured, Used the False Products of that Torture to ‘Sell the War’ and to keep-the-Terror-going – and Hid it All from Congress and US?
Until the Ex-Post Facto Torture Kabuki is exposed, We – US – will continue to be the ones being Duped – at the costs of Our National Honor, the nullification of Our Basic Principles of Equality and Freedom for All, and the defaming of Our Constitutional inheritance from the Founders.
It’s time to End the Spin – and Get Back to Facts – Well Reasoned within the Rule of Law.
More and more, issues such as yours are being raised. That is a hopeful sign.
fatster – Thanks for the link! I’m a big fan of Sara! That was a crystal clear article. If the Goopers ever wanted to take her on, then they better pack a lunch that she likes, or they’re gonna get an extra whupping!
When a Senator comes to believe there are certain things, grossly illegal things, cannot be discussed on the floor of the chamber because of some secrecy agreement we no longer have a Senate that is capable of deliberation,which is what they collect a check for.
You are not alone.
Poll: 57 percent of Americans would vote to reboot Congress
BY STEPHEN C. WEBSTER Published: August 30, 2009 Updated 14 hours ago
“According to a newly released Rasmussen poll, though satisfaction with legislators has improved to a small degree since the presidential election, 57 percent of Americans would vote to reboot the U.S. Congress by replacing every single lawmaker and “starting over.”
“The polling firm also said that while 18 percent were unsure, just 25 percent of voters would like to keep the present slate of lawmakers.”
More.
When are we going to see the poll showing how many Americans want to see the Cram In Asshole abolished?
Ah, is that what they’re going by nowadays? In the days when me and mine we looking over our shoulders, we called them Christians In Action. I’ve met some real Christians since then, though, and it’s nice to have an option. Thanks.
Chalk me up as another DiFi nonfan, but going somewhere else with the FeinGOLD letter – things like that are why I am kind of glad the OPR report isn’t out yet. Now, with the Bradbury opinion out, Feingold can make a bigger point that the OLC incorrectly states his position as a member of the Senate Intel Committee and ask for an investigation or mandate expansion into how OLC came to have such incorrect information and why OLC never bothered to confirm information with the Senate Intel Committee b4 issuing an opinion – relying in part on the committee’s positions – without talking to anyone on the committee and while affirmatively keeping the memorandum secret from the committee.
Um, then as a DiFi non-fan, you probably missed that that is already part of the SSCI investigation.
So that’s not going to work very well, given that DiFi and Feingold are both already participating in just such an investigation.
???
There’s no reason OPR can’t investigate attorney misconduct on the affair just bc the SSCI is also investigating torture – I don’t understand what you mean by it won’t work. And the SSCI standards for their investigation, well, I don’t know what they would be vis a vis OLC contacts with the Senate outside of statutory and regulatory duties, but OPR can definitely go into the non-statutory, non-regulatory, professional conduct standards and duties of due diligence.
I don’t think SSCI can do that very well, and if OPR were an honest actor (which I’ll only believe when I see anyway, so this is probably all moot) it went into its investigation without information like Feingold’s letter or information like Congress disputing factual representations Bradbury is making in his memo (and basing on Congressional briefings). It may not, as a DOJ wing, have had any independent info on that kind of a matter or the ability to get facts on that kind of a matter. What it does have is the right to investigate whether due diligence standards were met IF it has now become clear that Congress or members thereof dispute what Bradbury is saying. It always had far too narrow a mandate to do what it needed, so every aspect like that one would add to getting something more worthwhile generated, especially since once the OPR report (which is probably going to do nada much) is out, people are going to have a tendency to say it’s all over IMO.
In any event, the SSCI investigaition shouldn’t have any impact on widening the mandate on the OPR investigation to include lapses in duties of prof conduct that are fleshed out by something like Feingold’s disputes and evidentiary letter to back him up.
Sorry, I misunderstood that you wanted that to be included in the OPR.
FWIW, the OPR report is–at least according to multiple reports–done. It was the new OPR head’s recommendation that was used to give cover to Holder for taking up the investigation.
But they may include this discrepancy. Graham was aware they were lying about his briefing back in 2004. Jello Jay was aware that they were lying about his breing in 2004, too, or at least I assume from the IG Report which claims he was briefed when he wasn’t. And Jello Jay and Mukasey were fighting about the report tracking their briefings going back to last summer.
That doesn’t mean it’s in the OPR report, but it might be.
You know, it would be nice if Bob Graham would come out and help mold the effort after the OPR Report is released.
I don’t think it will be – from the description of what the OPR was cleared to check out back when, I remember thinking it was going to be way too limited and to far too many things, looking into matters relating to the drafting from what looked to be a really cursory, almost a “did they remember to Shepardize” fashion.
Most of the things that you could get your teeth into seemed to be not within the parameters of what they would be looking at and I don’t think they were going to be going outside the Dept (to Congress) for the report. That’s why I think it would be good to have some push on the string, even though it is a string. Bc when that report comes out (and especially with the MSM having set the expectation that it won’t *be recommending criminal charges* as if that’s what it would have been for, which it is not) I think there’s going to be a HUGE push all around to say, “all done now – you may not have liked their advice, but all done now”
When instead there needs to be a really wide ranging investigation into how DOJ has been interacting with the courts and Congress throughout the GWOT with respect to obstruction; lapses in candor to the tribunals; wanton and/or willful failure to preserve evidence; wanton and/or willful failure to provide evidence or even evidence summaries under claim of privilege to the courts and Congress; wanton and/or willful failure to have clients preserve despite knowledge of likely litigation (dating from Gonzales’ Jan 2002 memo where he states the likelihood of future litigation or at least through the Padilla, Moussaoui and GITMO habeas cases, whichever hit first); wanton and/or willful failure to provide exculpatory information; conspiracies to mislead Congress and to affirmatively use state secrets and classification to obstruct Congress and the courts so as to not produce evidence of Executive branch crimes; misrepresentations in open court, including at oral argument in the Supreme Court with such misrepresetations ongoing and continuing with a failure to correct the record; etc.
These are the kinds of things that won’t even begin to be within the OPR review and yet they don’t involve touchy feely standards of who thinks advice is so bad as to be culpable. You can’t look at the culpability of the advice (IMO) without considering the overall context of how it was deliberately designed to be kept from court and Congressional review (there are a number of times the memos recite that things are ok only as long as a US court doesn’t claim jurisdiction and I have a hard time believing that this was also “briefed” to Congress, that the OLC was saying things were legal as long as the Executive branch of gove was never subjected to the judicial branch of gov.
Right now, I think the OPR is not going to be nearly what it could and should be before the door is shut and I think the door WILL be shut after it is out. So IMO now is the time to push for more areas of inquiry (just wth was happening in McNulty’s ED VA that he had lawyers responding to Brinkema that there were no tapes while other lawyers in his office were reading about and presumably – if they were doing their job – reviewing tapes and there is no way McNulty and the tape reviwers didn’t know that those tapes were the subject of production orders in not just the Moussaoui case but others. The attempts to save the torturers from litigation by referencing the criminal referrals in ED VA have more and more tied down, in the public record, who the actors on a lot of the stages were or where they were – things we have kind of known from stories here and there for a long time, but things that are now much more openly and publically being reported so as to form the basis of a request to investigate.
How could Clement be telling the Sup Ct in late April of 2004 that we don’t torture or do things “like” torture when an IG report was almost done and ready to come out the next month on CIA interrogation deaths and yet the DOJ felt it could take the “no torture” position in front of the SUp Ct without consequence? And when the GITMO pictures came out the next day and the “few bad military apples” was cooked up, where was the OLC and AG and CIA Gen COunsel and others, including any lawyers involved with the CIA IG report, but esp OLC – where was OLC vis a vis correcting the record to the Sup Ct on whether or not the US did have a policy of “a little bit of” torture, since the interrogation related deaths were toture under even the OLC definition.
When has that record to the Sup Ct EVER been corrected formally – despite the ad infinitum of lawyers with a duty to do just that? Instead, the Sup Ct and nation were given the Padilla press conf in June if 04, discussing all kinds of “investigaiton” and the joint efforts of all kinds of deparments (and coming after both the IG report and the Thiessen which found Geneva Conventions violations at the So Carolina brig) and never mentioning torture, never mentioning repeated drownings of sources, etc – and that press conf was conducted by the man who led the charge in Padilla’s original detention – Comey – and who also knew damn well and good of the issues of coercion that had been made in that case and which were now being proved out in the pages of the IG report, and yet which were still being buried from the courts by DOJ.
Lord there’s a lot more for OPR to investigate and determine ripeness for obstruction and other matters, but those things have never been referred to it – again, if it is an honest actor, which seems much in doubt right now.
Ben Sargent’s take
Cheney, et al., clearly don’t believe their own mendacious hyperbole. If they believed any of it, then why lie? Every few months they pivot and hang their support of torture on a new argument. Now it is, “Yeah, we did it, it worked, and it kept us safe. But we didn’t know about the really bad stuff.” This directly contradicts early denials in which they claimed that we didn’t torture. The statements are mutually exclusive; either we did or we didn’t.
It is axiomatic that if you truly believe in the soundness of your argument, you do not begin its defense by lying. For if you are caught in a lie, it undermines your credibility and your argument. Cheney was lying. Cheney is lying.